By Ilana DeBare

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors had an opportunity Tuesday to reverse a bad decision about Altamont wind power — and they refused.

The board voted 3-2 for steps that would uphold their recent decision to let Altamont Winds Inc. (AWI) delay for another three years before replacing their outmoded, deadly turbines with modern ones that kill fewer birds.

AWI is the only wind company at Altamont Pass that has not begun repowering, the term for replacing old deadly turbines with more efficient, safe ones. AWI’s current permit calls for it to repower by the end of 2015. But AWI has pled poverty, saying it can’t afford to repower, and so the supervisors cut the company its third “special deal” in the space of a decade.

The three-year extension will lead to the unnecessary deaths of an estimated 1,900 birds, including 11 to 16 majestic Golden Eagles and 300 to 400 other raptors.

“Our wildlife cannot afford more of this killing,” GGBA Executive Director Cindy Margulis warned the board on Tuesday before the vote.

Golden Eagle / Photo by David H. Webster (Crreative Commons)

This week’s vote broke down along the same lines as the board’s earlier vote in April — with Supervisors Scott Haggerty, Nate Miley, and Richard Valle voting to give AWI an extension, and Supervisors Wilma Chan and Keith Carson opposing the extension.

At issue this week was approval of a “Statement of Overriding Considerations” — basically, a legal document stating that the benefits of allowing AWI to keep operating its old turbines outweigh the severe environmental damage.

GGBA — joined by representatives from Mt. Diablo and Santa Clara Valley Audubon — made a cogent and comprehensive case that the extension will benefit neither wildlife nor county residents.

GGBA board members Linda Carloni and Alan Harper were joined in testifying by nearly the entire GGBA staff. Among the points made:

• Repowering would create numerous new union jobs. Other Altamont wind companies are generating between 500 and 600 skilled construction jobs through demolition, salvage, and replacement of the old turbines. That is more than ten times the total number of staff (about 40) currently employed by AWI.
• Repowering would make the Alameda County wind industry more competitive. Modern, efficient turbines that are not viewed as death traps for wildlife will be more attractive to buyers of renewable energy, and will generate more tax revenue for the county.

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Note: This is the fourth in an ongoing series of posts by GGBA member George Peyton about his better half Lani Rumbaoa’s effort to spot 600 bird species within the Lower 48 states during 2015.
By George Peyton
Four days of birding in South Florida added 46 new species to Lani’s Big Year List, including some difficult-to-see Target Birds.
Because we only had a short time to bird in South Florida and some of our Target Species can be difficult to locate, we decided to engage the services of a local professional bird guide, Larry Manfredi, whose sharp birding skills would be invaluable in helping us quickly locate species such as Purple Swamphen, Red-whiskered Bulbul, White-crowned Pigeon, and Spot-breasted Oriole. These and other special species can be found in suburban neighborhoods around the Greater Miami Area but periodically shift their locations, so having someone like Larry, who is constantly checking local sightings, can make a huge difference between success and failure in seeing the bird.
Red-whiskered Bulbul / Photo by K. Hari Krishna (Creative Commons)
The first thing that I always do as Lani’s Big Year Manager when visiting a new area is to make a List of Target Birds that are likely to be there and possibly difficult to see elsewhere. This applies whether it is Greater Susanville, CA or Greater Miami, FLA. Lani reviews each target species and its field marks in the latest (Sixth) edition of the National Geographic Guide, which we also carry with us in the field, backed up by the second edition of the much larger and heavier Sibley Guide, which stays in our car for further reference purposes.
I also email the Target Bird List to local birders or professional bird guides well before we visit the area for help planning our route. That applies even when Lani and I are birding entirely on our own, as we did in most of South Texas in February. ABA (American Birding Association) Bird-finding Guides and other state or local bird-finding guides can also be extremely helpful in this planning process.
An example of a carefully planned birding day in South Florida:
Larry Manfredi picked Lani and me up at 6:30 a.m. in Homestead, Florida, about an hour before sunrise. We drove directly out to an area of low grass and marsh vegetation in Everglades National Park, where, just as it was getting light, we listened for the distinctive calls of King and Black Rails.…

By Ilana DeBare
“Chalk it up… to compassion for Oakland’s herons.”
That was the slogan for Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s first-ever Art Flash Mob — a gathering of local artists and nature lovers to create sidewalk chalk drawings that would inspire people to protect downtown Oakland’s nesting colonies of Black-crowned Night-Herons and Snowy Egrets.
About a dozen artists descended on 13th and Alice Streets just after daybreak last Friday to create the drawings. While the trees overhead thrummed with constant chirps, clicks, gurgles, and squawks, the sidewalks filled with beautiful color images of herons and egrets.
Big thanks to GGBA members Michael and Brenda Helm for helping organize this event, Jack Laws’s Nature Journal Club, Ecological Expressive Arts Organization and its founder Shauna DeGuire, Laurie Wigham and the SF Sketchers Meetup group, and of course all the individual artists.
Michael Helm at work
Artists at work
Creating a sidewalk egret
A beautiful heron and eggs — not yet finished
The leafy ficus and Brisbane box trees of downtown Oakland are home to somewhere between 45 and 85 pairs of nesting herons and egrets, which hunt in nearby Lake Merritt and the Oakland Estuary.
Last year, the colony became the focus of national news when the U.S. Postal Service hired tree trimmers to lop off the tops of trees that held active nests. Several young Black-crowned Night-Herons were injured and taken to International Bird Rescue for rehabilitation.
This year, GGBA is mounting a campaign to protect these nests and encourage Oaklanders to celebrate them as one of the city’s wonderful and unique features.
Th Art Flash Mob was part of this. In addition, GGBA is:

• Holding two public bird walks to explore the nesting colony on the evenings of April 29 and May 6. (Check our web site for starting times and places.)
• Working with nearby elementary schools and child care centers to introduce children and parents to the birds.
• Distributing giant educational posters about the herons in downtown storefronts and public spaces, along with flyers in Chinese. (The colonies are next to Oakland’s Chinatown.)
• Organizing volunteer docents to monitor and gather data on the downtown heron/egret population, and speak with passersby about the birds.

(You can read about the overall campaign in last Friday’s San Francisco Chronicle. Or click here to view a video of our heron flash mob in action!)
Night-Heron chicks
Snowy Egret siudewalk art
Night-Heron sidewalk art
One of the artists from Ecological Expressive Arts Organization
Night-Heron sidewalk art
In the long run, we would love to see Oakland do more to protect the young herons and egrets.…

By Ilana DeBare
Maggie Hurley’s relationship with birds began as a child in Southern California. When she found injured birds, she’d put them in a shoebox and try to nurse them back to health. Some veterinarian neighbors of hers opened a wildlife rescue center and she would visit with pelicans in their backyard and songbirds in their garage.
Today Hurley’s own studio is also filled with birds — but of the painted variety.
Hurley, a Berkeley resident, will be our featured guest artist at Golden Gate Bird Alliance’s 2015 Birdathon Awards Celebration on Sunday May 17.
Her work includes both paintings and prints. Some of her most popular pieces are brightly-colored portraits of birds on four-inch square wood blocks.
One of the things that makes her work unique is the sense of whimsy and personality she brings to each bird.
“I’ll enlarge the eyes a little bit or do something to make it more charming,” she said. “I appreciate all the people doing Audubon-style illustration, but I like to give it a little more ‘oomph.’ I’m not trying to capture birds scientifically, but find a relatable expression on a face that shares so little with humans.”
MacGillivray’s Warbler by Maggie Hurley
Great Horned Owl by Maggie Hurley
Northern Cardinal by Maggie Hurley
Another of Hurley’s trademarks is her commitment to creating art that is affordable to all kinds of people. Her original paintings sell for as little as $80, while the wood block prints sell for $40.
She recently launched a subscription service called Bird in a Box, where for just $25 subscribers receive a new bird wood-block portrait each month.
“It’s a nice alternative to opening your mailbox and finding junk and bills,” Hurley said. “Plus it will force me to paint one new bird every month.”
Maggie Hurley with some of her wood-block prints in her Berkeley studio / Photo by Ilana DeBare
Hurley, who attended the Laguna College of Art and Design, slipped into painting birds almost by accident. As relief from a long, drawn-out argument with a boyfriend, she started doodling in her sketchbook and discovered she had made a little cartoon-like owl. Later she turned that owl figure into a character in a children’s book.
“From painting him, I thought, ‘Maybe I should try painting a real owl,'” she said. “People responded well, so I branched out. Now I ping-pong between my whimsical Herbert the Owl and bird portraits.”…

By Matthew Zlatunich
The Presidio is already one of San Francisco’s jewels, an urban national park filled with nature and history. Now — as the National Park Service embarks on replacement of a major road through the park —  we have an opportunity to make the Presidio into an even more welcoming place for wildlife.
The NPS is replacing Doyle Drive, the elevated highway leading to the Golden Gate Bridge, with an at-grade roadway hidden from public view by discrete tunnels. This will add 13 acres of new parkland connecting the Main Post of the Presidio to Crissy Field — a blank slate of open space to be shaped into a landscape of National Park quality.
This project offers the potential to expand wetlands, reestablish native plant communities, and enhance wildlife viewing opportunities.
The section of the Presidio that is being redesigned
Construction of the new road is already underway
A project website has been established to inform and engage the public as the planning and design work proceeds. The website is loaded with information about the project, scheduled meetings, and public participation including  a survey that can be found under the “comment” section.
We encourage Golden Gate Bird Alliance members and other bird lovers to peruse the website and comment via the public survey!
Here are some ideas expressed by GGBA in a previous letter to the Presidio Trust:

• Marsh expansion. We encourage expansion of the Crissy lagoon and marsh to the fullest extent possible. Coastal wetlands of California have been severely reduced by development over the past century and such a prime opportunity to re-establish coastal wetland should be enthusiastically embraced. Consider the potential for a marsh that would completely surround the Crissy Field Center, integrating with the Quartermaster reach to the east and spanning westward to the foot of Battery Blaney.

Birding at Crissy Lagoon in the Presidio
Great Blue Heron at Crissy Lagoon

• Re-establish the coastal bluff. We support the establishment of a coastal bluff that reflects the nature of the historic bluff in form and function. The new bluff should serve to bolster the natural and cultural elements of the surrounding topography.

• Use of local native plants. We support the concept of drawing from the native plant palate of the Presidio to create appropriate plant communities that will represent and enhance the local, historic flora. We encourage the exclusive use of native plants for the entire Presidio Parklands project area.

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